The overarching theme of our research is a comparative study of physiological mechanisms of environmental adaptation and stress tolerance in highly specialized endemic species from of Lake Baikal and common Palearctic species.
We use experimental and comparative approaches in order to understand how environmental stressors such as temperature, anoxia/hypoxia or toxicity pollution may limit survival and distribution of endemic amphipods in Lake Baikal.
This understanding is crucial for prognosis of the fate of endemic benthos populations, which comprise 1/3 of unique Lake Baikal biodiversity, in the face of the global environmental change or local anthropogenic hazards.
Our studies aimed to understand whether changed environment can reduce competitive abilities of the endemic Baikal species compared to their ubiquitous Palearctic counterparts. Understanding the differences in tolerance and stress protection mechanisms between these species will provide important information for predicting the resilience of unique endemic Baikal fauna in the face of global climate change and may have important implications for future studies of the effects of global climate change on other ancient ecosystems worldwide.
We use experimental and comparative approaches in order to understand how environmental stressors such as temperature, anoxia/hypoxia or toxicity pollution may limit survival and distribution of endemic amphipods in Lake Baikal.
This understanding is crucial for prognosis of the fate of endemic benthos populations, which comprise 1/3 of unique Lake Baikal biodiversity, in the face of the global environmental change or local anthropogenic hazards.
Our studies aimed to understand whether changed environment can reduce competitive abilities of the endemic Baikal species compared to their ubiquitous Palearctic counterparts. Understanding the differences in tolerance and stress protection mechanisms between these species will provide important information for predicting the resilience of unique endemic Baikal fauna in the face of global climate change and may have important implications for future studies of the effects of global climate change on other ancient ecosystems worldwide.
Research in our lab is focused in the main areas:
Freshwater and stress ecology;
Environmental Physiology and Toxicology;
Metabolic Physiology and Bioenergetics
Models: We use several close-related endemic amphipods (Crustacea) and gastropods (Mollusca) as models for our research. Endemic species are comparied with different common distributed Palearctic gammaridae or lymnaeidae species. In Lake Baikal gastropods and amphipods predominate, accounting for the greatest share of biodiversity and biomass. There are 148 species of gastropods (80% are Baikal endemics) and 272 species of amphipods (99% of them endemics) in the littoral zone of Baikal comprising 20% of the overall species diversity in the lake. Together, gastropods and amphipods constitute up to 98% of the total biomass of the macrobenthic organisms in Baikal and play a key role in the food chains and functioning of Baikal ecosystems
